Probably everyone reading this has changed a lightbulb and heard a joke about “how many people does it take to change a lightbulb.”

That genre of joke is not too old. The first recorded instance of a “lightbulb joke” occurred in the 1960’s. In those days we still allowed jokes about ethnic groups. The first joke about changing a lightbulb was aimed at people of Polish ancestry. It went something like this.

“How many Polacks does it take to change a lightbulb?”

“Three. One to hold the lightbulb and two to turn the ladder.”

Of course we’ve progressed in our thinking regarding people of Polish descent and other ethnic groups. We now know that there is no “one” group that has a corner on the intelligence quotient or lack thereof.

This past week, after a third trip to the hardware store to buy four lightbulbs for one fixture, I was joking with the nice lady helping me for the third time about “How many preachers does it take to change a lightbulb?”

I’m glad she didn’t say, “It’s not how many preachers, but how long does it take considering they only work on Sundays!”

The reason I was on my third trip to the store was that I couldn’t figure out the size bulb to use. On the first trip, I missed the size of the “screw-in” part. The second time, I got a bulb with the right “screw-in” size, but the bulb was too long and the fixture wouldn’t go up past the end of the bulb.

On my third time with the nice lady, she asked a very logical question. “Why don’t you bring the burned-out bulb in and we can simply get the right size from it.”

All I could do was glare back at the lady and say, “It’s a ‘man thing.’ We don’t ask for directions when driving and we don’t do such logical things like bring in the old bulb and try to match it. We’d rather make three or four trips.”

So the question is, “How many preachers does it take to change a lightbulb?”

The answer in my denomination might be “Don’t know. We formed a committee to come up with a decision and they’re still discussing it!”

I was reading some Lightbulb Jokes and saw one that was very appropriate for this election year.

“How many ‘believable, competent, just-right-for-the-job’ presidential candidates does it take to change a lightbulb?”

“It’s going to be a dark 4 years, isn’t it?”

I finally got the right bulbs for the fixture and changed them, but wouldn’t you know it, two worked and two didn’t. Was it the bulbs or the light fixture itself?

Easy-peasy. I’ll just switch out the bulbs and that will answer the question. It turned out that the bulbs were okay, but the light fixture half-worked. One side didn’t burn, while the other did.

Does that mean the light fixture has to be taken down and re-worked? I’ve already spent an hour changing lightbulbs and, now, I find out that the fixture needs changing, too. That means rewiring the whole doggone contraption or changing out the fixture. All I wanted to do was change the lightbulbs.

The more I thought about it, the better I felt. If you think logically, you’ll realize that the light is only needed at night. That’s just 50% of the time. Plus, two of the lights do work.

I’ll give Donna Sue the lighted portion of the room and I’ll stay in the dark part. I’m more comfortable there anyway.